


A Muscle the Size of Your Fist

by Ghost_in_the_Hella



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bromance, Bros to lovers, F/F, Frenemies to friends to lovers, I see your griddlehark and raise you camilleon, No Spoilers for Harrow the Ninth, Sword lesbians, Who wants to be a Camilleonaire?, some spoilers for gideon the ninth, sweary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:56:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24997951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_in_the_Hella/pseuds/Ghost_in_the_Hella
Summary: It isn’t that being caught exercising in the halls is actually embarrassing; Camilla knows that there’s more to health than medicine, and keeping fit requires lifting more than just books. What’s embarrassing, what’s down-to-the-marrow humiliating, is that she actually has the time to exercise. She should be helping her necromancer achieve lyctorhood, not finding exciting new places to do squats.It’s some small consolation, perhaps, that there’s at least one other cavalier whose necromancer has seen fit to turn her loose on Canaan House without a duty to fulfill. That the other cavalier is Gideon is, well, less consoling.---In an alternate universe where things are progressing as the Emperor Undying intended, Camilla and Gideon find themselves with a lot more time on their hands and a lot less supervision from their necromancers. This could be the start of a beautiful bromance.
Relationships: Camilla Hect & Gideon Nav, Camilla Hect & Palamedes Sextus, Gideon Nav/Camilla Hect, background Gideon crushing on everyone with breasts and a pulse, background Palamedes Sextus/Dulcinea Septimus, background griddlehark
Comments: 81
Kudos: 169





	1. Warm Up

**Author's Note:**

> Queer sword-slinging lady jocks in space!

Canaan House is massive. It’s got rooms and hallways and stairways for days. In theory, you could walk around for weeks without seeing another soul. It feels like an insult that Camilla and Gideon should keep running into each other. Especially when the “running into each other” is literal: Camilla is built like a brick, but Gideon is built like a wrecking ball, so sprinting around a corner squarely into her broad chest isn’t nearly as much fun as a facefull of breasts would be under other circumstances.

For a moment, Camilla thinks that she’s actually blacked out from the impact. Then she realizes that, no, she’s just got her face smothered in Gideon’s ludicrously _extra_ black robes. She pushes herself off Gideon’s bulk - Gideon doesn’t budge an inch - and glares at her. Somehow, even though Camilla has heard Gideon speak and has therefore realized that beneath her imposing frame lurks heretofore unplumbed depths of idiocy, the sight of her still pulls Cam up short for just a second.

The black, hooded robes draped over her tall, muscular frame scream Drama and very probably Violent Murder. The effect of the ghoulish facepaint (a skull seems a bit on the nose, but the Ninth aren’t reputed for their subtlety) shadowed by that hood is only slightly spoiled by the aviator shades that obscure her eyes. 

Once Camilla’s lizard brain has stopped screaming at her to fight or flee and her logical mind has reminded her that Gideon is at best a bumbling oaf (albeit one alarmingly skilled with a sword), she’s able to take in the smaller details of her appearance. The sweat is really the thing that stands out: it’s blurring the lines of her facepaint, trickling down her painted throat, staining the fabric under her arms a darker shade of black. She’s sour with the stink of it. Her glasses are a hair askew, revealing one red(!) eyebrow, and her breath is heavy. She’s got a dopey, baffled expression on her face.

Gideon is the first to break the silence between them. “We’ve gotta stop meeting like this.” She punctuates the inane comment with a cocky grin, like she’s made some great joke.

Camilla takes a fraction of a second to steady her own labored breathing, then replies cooly, “I think I liked you better when you didn’t speak.” It’s been nearly a month since Camilla’s first confrontation with Gideon Nav, and little has occurred since that time to change her impression. Gideon still feigns her vow of silence when others are around, presumably on the orders of her necromancer to keep her from being an embarrassment to the House of the Ninth. But ever since the night Camilla and Palamedes helped her bust the Lady Nonagesimus out of her grim bone cocoon, Gideon hasn’t bothered keeping up the pretense around the Sixth. 

Gideon merely shrugs; insults seem to roll off of her like water from a duck’s back and, based on the interactions Cam has witnessed between cav and necro of the Ninth, she has some solid theories as to why this is the case. Gideon starts stretching as though completely oblivious to the fact that she’s blocking Camilla’s way. “There’s a stairway around that corner,” Gideon says conversationally, indicating the direction with a jerk of her head, “that’s surprisingly sturdy. I never see anybody else on it, either.”

Camilla raises an eyebrow and folds her arms across her chest. “You’re telling me this why?”

“Stairs are good cardio.” Gideon pauses in her stretching, her face abruptly radiating an eager, childlike glee even under its sweaty skullpaint. “Hey! Wanna race?”

Camilla’s brow furrows in confusion. “Race?”

“Up the stairs!”

“I’ll pass.”

“Oh, come on! It’s not like you’re busy.”

“It so happens that I am,” Camilla lies.

Gideon’s startling eyebrows (seriously, is red hair even allowed on the Ninth?) rise above the tops of her glasses. “Really?”

“Really.” 

“Hm. Weird.” Gideon scratches thoughtfully at her chin, smearing her fingertips bone white. “Because I could’ve sworn Palamedes was playing doctor with Dulcinea again today. And her room is in _that_ direction,” Gideon says, pointing away from Camilla.

“I’m… getting medical supplies.”

“Okay, but your room isn’t the direction you were heading, either. Plus I’m pretty sure Pal has every medical supply known to mankind set up in Dulcinea’s room already.”

“Not _every_ medical supply,” Camilla protests toothlessly. She’s loath to admit it, but it’s possible she’s slightly underestimated the functionality of Gideon’s brain cells.

Gideon folds her arms over her chest in a way that makes every muscle stand out in startlingly sharp definition. Camilla suspects she’s practiced it in a mirror. “And I just so happen to run into you damn near every day, never carrying medical supplies. Always sweating and out of breath. Cam, I work out in this place enough to know what it looks like. Why’re you acting like I caught you taking a dump in the halls instead of jogging in them? You… _weren_ ’t taking a dump in the halls, right?” Her face lights up. “Or are you having a secret affair?? Is it Coronabeth??? Ooh, or Dyas??? She’s kinda uptight, but I feel like you’d be into that.” Her face crumples into sudden revulsion. “Ew, it’s not one of the _Eighth_ , is it?”

Camilla laughs before she can stop herself. “Alright, alright, enough. If it stops you speculating about nonexistent secret affairs, I’ll race with you.”

“Yeah??” Gideon’s off like a released spring, and Camilla follows her to the stairs with an amused shake of her head.

It isn’t that being caught exercising in the halls is actually embarrassing; Camilla knows that there’s more to health than medicine, and keeping fit requires lifting more than just books. What’s embarrassing, what’s down-to-the-marrow _humiliating_ , is that she actually has the time to exercise. She should be helping her necromancer achieve lyctorhood, not finding exciting new places to do squats. 

But her necromancer is too busy simultaneously courting and analyzing the Lady Septimus to spare much time for digging about in the mysteries of Canaan House, or for Camilla at all when she isn’t assisting him in Dulcinea’s treatments. In all fairness, he’s been in love with the Lady Septimus since he was a child, and he’s never been able to turn his back on a medical problem. Camilla isn’t jealous. She _isn’t_. That would be unbecoming of a cavalier. She simply wants to be useful and do what they came here to do, that’s all.

It’s some small consolation, perhaps, that there’s at least one other cavalier whose necromancer has seen fit to turn her loose on Canaan House without a duty to fulfill. That the other cavalier is Gideon is, well, less consoling.

Gideon is practically vibrating with excitement when Camilla joins her at the foot of a dark stairway that ascends into what appears to be infinity. Camilla wonders briefly if Gideon intends to kill her. “We’re racing to the top of this staircase, yes?”

“ _Yop_.”

“...Where, exactly, _is_ the top of this staircase?”

“The next landing is, like…” Gideon pauses to think. It appears to be a somewhat uncomfortable condition for her. “...Hundred steps? It’s not that bad. Drearburh’s got worse.”

Camilla’s heart probably won’t explode in her chest; that would be medically improbable, if not actually impossible. Still, though. “That is an _exceptionally_ long staircase.”

“Yeah, well, this is an exceptionally weird building.”

Camilla really can’t argue with that, and anyway Gideon is already dropping into the kind of approximation of a runner’s starting position that only one who’s never seen an actual race would assume. 

“Ready?” Gideon asks, and while Camilla is still judging the stairs and trying to figure out a way to back out of this situation that wouldn’t seem cowardly, Gideon springs into action and starts pounding her way up the stairs like a young elephant.

A competitive spark flares to life in Camilla’s chest, and she finds herself chasing after the lumbering Gideon Nav with no further regard for her safety. What Gideon lacks in grace, she makes up for in sheer strength as she explodes up the staircase. Camilla’s legs start burning within the first seven seconds, followed shortly by her lungs. Clearly, she needs to bump up her lower body regimen, she muses as her elevated heartbeat hammers in her ears. She can’t be doing too badly, though: Gideon’s obnoxiously fit and had at least a full second’s lead on her, and yet Camilla’s practically treading on her heels.

Camilla collapses onto the landing moments after Gideon, the two of them promptly devolving into a jumbled up tangle of limbs and ragged breathing on the cold, musty floor.

“That… was… _awesome_ ,” Gideon croaks out when she’s able to speak.

Camilla, whose head feels like it might burst from the amount of blood rushing to it, can’t completely agree. Especially when she considers that she’s going to have to descend those same stairs again if she’s to get back to her quarters tonight.

Gideon rolls over onto her side to face Camilla, still panting and grinning like an idiot. “ _Dude_. We should do that again.”

Camilla narrows her eyes into what she really hopes looks like a death glare. She’s too tired to be confident about her fine motor control.

“Not right now, duh,” Gideon scoffs. “Tomorrow?”

“I am absolutely… never… _ever_ … running up these… stairs again.”

Gideon considers this. “...Day _after_ tomorrow?”

“I don’t… have time… to race you… every day.”

“Oh, right,” Gideon says, the grin dropping from her face. “You’re ‘busy,’” she continues, her voice adding the air quotes her arms are too tired to make.

“Very busy,” Camilla agrees. Gideon lifts the hem of her shirt to mop at her sweat-drenched face, cursing when she realizes she’s smearing her white facepaint all over the black fabric. The abs revealed by this gesture are, frankly, astonishing. You could probably use them to plane wood. Camilla forces herself to look away before Gideon can catch her staring. “I’m really not in the market for a workout buddy,” Camilla explains.

“Yeah, I usually work out alone, too…” What remains of Gideon’s skull would make a phrenologist cringe. “But I dunno. I kinda thought it might be fun. You know?” She shrugs her heavy shoulders pathetically, and Camilla is deeply annoyed to find that the gesture stirs her empathy. “Never had anybody to race before. I mean, Harrow, when we were _really_ little. But she was a twig even then; she could barely keep up with me just walking. It'd be nice to work out with someone who can keep up.”

“You didn’t have many friends in Drearburh, then?”

Gideon freezes up suddenly. She hauls herself up to her feet in a dramatic swirl of black robes. “Uh. Anyway. I gotta go. Harrow’s gonna murder me if she sees my paint like this.”

She’s bounding down the steps while Camilla’s still processing. When Camilla is finally able to drag herself back to her feet and down the accursed staircase so she can rehydrate and then pass out, she resolves to become better about avoiding Gideon Nav.


	2. Gains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cam and Gideon make some gains. Some are easier to acknowledge than others.

If there’s one good thing to be said about working out with Gideon nearly every day, it’s that Camilla is in the best shape she’s ever been in in her life. There’s something about Gideon’s eagerness and the exceptional ease with which she does even the most complex exercise maneuvers (a one-handed clapping pushup should _not_ be physically possible, and yet...) that spurs Camilla’s competitive instincts. 

After a month of striving to match Gideon’s pace, she can do more reps with more weight. She can squat lower and hold it steadier. She’s nearly doubled the length of time she can plank. She doesn’t look for her gains in the mirror - she’s not hopelessly vain like Naberius Tern, who checks his coiffeur in every reflective surface - but they’re hard to miss.

She goes to bed each night with a pleasing ache in her muscles, her mind blissfully empty. It’s a vast improvement from her brain running itself in sleepless circles while she waits for day to break. Or at least for her necromancer to return from his perpetual vigil by Dulcinea Septimus’s bedside.

There is, of course, a downside to working out with Gideon, and that is Gideon herself. More specifically, it’s the way that Gideon never shuts up.

“D’you think they’re banging?” Gideon’s radiant grin under that horrible skullpaint never gets any less jarring. She gestures to the balcony rail beside her with a jerk of her head.

Against her better judgement, Camilla glances over the rail to the occupants of the floor below, then groans. She supposes she shouldn’t be surprised at this point, seeing as how Gideon’s idea of conversation tends to revolve entirely around a) workout routines and b) the theoretical sex lives of every person currently occupying Canaan House. Apparently including the Fifth House, for some unfathomable reason. “Nav,” she says in a pained voice, “they’re _married_.”

“So?” Gideon counters, dropping into a respectable squat. Given how biceps-centric her routines tend to be, she’s taken to Camilla’s enforced leg regimens disturbingly well. She’s also made progress with learning the Positional Meditation exercises that Camilla uses to cool down after a workout. Gideon lowers herself into the pose known on the Sixth as The Emperor’s Shadow, but which Gideon has dubbed Downward Facing Dumbass. “Harrowhark’s parents are married, too,” she continues. “And I’d be shocked if they _ever_ banged. Like, even to make Harrow. I’m still convinced she was conceived through some form of very maculate conception. Probably involving arcane rituals and the sacrifice of virgins.”

Camilla rolls her eyes. “Point taken. Grudgingly. But yes, you are technically correct that not all married couples have sex.”

“So _do_ you think they’re banging?”

The Fifth are generally reserved when they appear together in public, but there’s a quiet affection between them that’s plainly visible to even the most idle observer. And Camilla is nothing if not vigilant. She bends to stretch her back, striking a flawless Three-Star Spindle pose with little effort but failing to dodge Gideon’s ludicrous question. Gideon’s still watching her and waiting for an answer when she rises again. “Yes, Nav, I expect that they are,” Camilla offers with a resigned sigh. “I prefer not to think about it.”

Gideon nods thoughtfully. “So, uh.” She straightens from her own pose and leans her hip against the low balcony rail with what passes for a serious expression on her face, and oh god, Camilla’s been dreading this. “You. And Palamedes.” 

Camilla hopes the expression on her face is shuttered enough to signal Gideon to back off, but Gideon isn’t great at reading other people and also she’s an idiot, so naturally she presses on. “Like. Speaking of married couples.”

“We aren’t married,” Camilla reminds her cooly.

“Yeah, but. Like. Are you two…?” Gideon makes a confused series of hand gestures that imply coitus of varying fashions, although it takes her a good while to figure out ones that imply anything remotely resembling heterosexual intercourse. “ _You_ know,” she finishes, giving up the hand gestures with a shrug.

It’s absolutely, positively 100% none of Gideon’s business - or anyone else’s, for that matter - but Camilla still finds herself answering, “No.”

Gideon looks genuinely surprised by this. “No?”

“Not every cavalier is ‘banging’ their necromancer,” she informs Gideon. Bizarrely, she has the strong impression that Gideon is blushing somewhere under all that paint.

“Uh. I _know_ that.” She curls her arms over her chest defensively, her expression devolving into what can only be described as a pout. 

“Are you and the Lady Nonagesi--”

“ _No_!” Gideon exclaims, leaping back as though stung. It’s loud enough that the Fifth startle and look up at the balcony above them. Camilla waves down at them in response, and Magnus awkwardly waves back while Abigail arches an intrigued eyebrow. “I absolutely am _not_ \-- pfhagh-- how could you even _think_ that--” Gideon hisses inarticulately, oblivious to the scene she’s somehow managing to cause even from a floor above any other people. She pulls her hands out of her armpits and holds them up in front of Camilla’s face. “Do my hands _look_ like they’ve _withered_?? Like they’ve rotted and decayed and the fingers have fallen off????”

“They do not,” Camilla affirms calmly and with a small measure of amusement.

“They do _not_ ,” Gideon agrees. “And I can assure you that if I even _contemplated_ laying a single _finger_ on _Harrowhark Nonagesimus_ , much less--” She pauses to shudder dramatically. “Much less _in_ \-- ” She gags a bit on some (probably) nonexistent vomit, and Camilla suspects the lady doth protest too much, but she’s not about to break up this epic bit of playacting. “My fingers would rot off. My tongue would-would-would… It would catch on _fire_ , it would burn to _ash_ and fall dead from my _lips_. My skin would _flay itself_ from my meat, and my _meat_ from my _bones_. I would vomit until I _died_. My eyes would _melt from their sockets_ if I even _glimpsed_ her--” (another dramatic shudder, complete with cringing) “--naked flesh.”

Camilla’s laughing at this point, but that doesn’t so much as break Gideon’s stride.

“My _junk_ would recoil in _horror_ ; it would shrivel up and _die_. It would be more tightly locked than the Locked Tomb itself. It would retreat into my body and seal itself off to the world.”

“That isn’t physically possible, but do go on.”

“Women would lament at the loss of my beauty as I shriveled and decayed into nothing. Despite my youth, I wouldn’t even leave a beautiful corpse: it would be rendered a desiccated horror by even the _thought_ of her touch. And then she’d probably do obscene things with my bones.” She shakes her head to rid herself of these nightmare visions. A coppery tress dislodges itself beneath her hood and falls against her forehead, catching on her paint like a fly on honey. “Camilla,” she says very seriously, “if I am ever reduced to bones, I will entrust their keeping unto you. Please make sure that they are burned to ash so I don’t end up as her osseous love-puppet.”

Camilla is out of breath once more as her diaphragm gets a vicious workout from her hysterical laughter. She puts up her palms placatingly. “Okay, okay. Sorry I asked.” 

“Not as sorry as I am. Ugh. I’ll need to wash my brain out with bleach.”

“I cannot in good conscience recommend that you do that. Still, though. You get my point about cavs and necros? We’re sworn to each other, yes, but that doesn’t mean we’re all screwing.”

“Yeah, but you and Pal actually _like_ each other. You’re...” She flails about for words. “You’re _good_ together.”

And she isn’t wrong. Camilla and Palamedes are a formidable team. In a different world, perhaps, they would be lovers. If Palamedes were not in love with Dulcinea Septimus and blind to all others. If they had not spent their entire adolescences living practically as kin. As it is, Palamedes is all but a brother to her, and - despite Gideon’s wilder speculations about what goes on in the House of the Third - incest is not considered an advisable or acceptable practice in any House. “We are,” Camilla concedes. “But we are not lovers.”

Gideon seems to take a moment to consider this, weighing Camilla’s words. “Okay,” she says finally. Rather than sounding disappointed by this admittedly boring development, Gideon sounds unaccountably pleased. 

A companionable silence sets in as they resume their Positional Meditation exercises, punctuated intermittently by Gideon’s soft grunts as she shifts from one position to another. Camilla observes her out of the corner of her eye. She’s not as intimately familiar with Gideon’s build as she is with her own, but she’s reasonably sure that Gideon’s made some gains herself, lately. 

It’s hard to tell with the false lines of her skullpaint, but it looks like Gideon’s cheeks have filled in somewhat. She’d looked hard and hollow when she first arrived at Canaan House; not as bad as her necromancer but still noticeably under-fed. Camilla has never been one to subscribe to rumors without ample evidence, but given that and the fact that Gideon seems to spend most of the time she’s not working out with Camilla in the dining area, downing seconds and thirds of the singularly unremarkable food provided by the First House as though she’s never eaten a full meal before… Well. It lends a certain measure of credibility to the rumors she’s long heard about Ninth House struggles. At any rate, Gideon looks better this way. Healthier. More robust.

Although Gideon’s arms had already been immediately impressive (and immediately, impressively on display) upon her arrival, her legs hadn’t been remotely on the same level. When Camilla first started enforcing leg days, Gideon had grumbled incessantly, and although she’d performed respectably there’d been a noticeable struggle with squats. She seems to be handling them nearly as well as pull-ups now. Her trousers are relatively loose, but they pull taut whenever Gideon drops into a squat or steps into a lunge, hinting at the muscles beneath the black fabric. Camilla’s been noticing those muscles more and more often during their last few workout sessions, so she suspects they’ve developed significantly.

Her shoulders look somehow even broader than they were already, her already unsettlingly well-muscled arms even more flawlessly sculpted. She could bench-press her necro without breaking a sweat. She could probably bench-press Camilla herself with only a grunt.

Camilla realizes abruptly that her normally ruler-precise form is seriously off - nearly as sloppy as Gideon’s typically is - and refocuses her attention, correcting her posture into a perfect Pale Tower pose. A bead of sweat trickles down the side of her face. She feels uncomfortably warm.

The muted voices of the Fifth grow slightly louder as the pair walks closer, then fade into silence as they pass through a doorway into another room. With her peripheral vision, Camilla notices Gideon looking at her askance. She feels, suddenly, like she’s under a microscope. Like Gideon’s looking too intimately, seeing her too well, observing the things lurking beneath her surface that even Camilla doesn’t care to inspect too closely. The unwelcome warmth under her skin ruptures, swells, sprouts barbs.

“Why don’t you ever pester the others?” Camilla asks, cold and abrupt. She doesn’t break her pose to meet Gideon’s inquisitive eyes, but she can feel them on her. “I’m sure Protesilaus has some great workout tips.”

Gideon huffs out a laugh and stops staring, which Camilla counts as a minor victory. “I bet he does.” 

Camilla moves effortlessly into the Emperor’s Thumb pose. “Magnus Quinn seems unlikely to be a quality workout partner, but he could certainly use the exercise and seems amenable to company if nothing else. Or I’m sure Jeannemary Chatur would be thrilled to spend time with you. And your _biceps_.”

Gideon shakes her head, her face inscrutable. She stands up straight and cracks her neck. It makes a noise like rocks clacking together and Camilla cringes. “I guess.”

“What I’m saying is, there’s no shortage of warm bodies if you require company on a daily basis. And as _charming_ as your incessant vulgar speculations on the sexual habits of our cohabitants are, some of us do prefer to spend our time here engaged in more serious tasks. Like assisting our necromancers in unlocking the secrets of lyctorhood.”

Gideon’s face slowly hardens as she listens, nodding along softly to Camilla’s words. “If you want me to go, I can go.” 

“I’m not telling you to go. I’m simply suggesting that you might be able to find a more receptive audience elsewhere.”

Gideon wipes her sweaty palms against her robes. “I can’t talk to any of them. Vow of silence, remember?”

Camilla stares at her incredulously - she literally _just_ shouted in the presence of the Fifth - but Gideon appears sincere in her belief that she is successfully maintaining her taciturn charade in front of the other Houses. “Why don’t you pester your necro, then?”

Gideon frowns. “I can’t talk to her, either.” Paint-tinged sweat runs down her throat. She plucks at the front of her robes, fanning herself. A hot wave of Gideon’s body odor washes over Camilla. Camilla fails to suppress her instinctive flinch in response. Gideon pauses, calloused fingers still distending the chest of her robes for a second before she shifts abruptly into an embarrassed posture that’s painfully at odds with her typical nonchalance. “Sorry,” she says through the tense set of her jaw. She pushes her sunglasses further up on her nose. “I’ll, uh… I’ll go find someone else to bother, I guess.”

Camilla’s not sure what makes her do it. Pity, perhaps. Boredom, more likely. Or maybe she’s lonelier than she’d like to admit. But when Gideon goes to walk past her, Camilla’s hand reaches out automatically and hooks into the crook of Gideon’s arm, stopping her.

Gideon looks at her expectantly, brow furrowed with confusion, and she waits. Her arm is warm and sweat-damp and wonderfully solid beneath Camilla’s palm. Heat rises from her skin like she’s Dominicus itself. “Well?” Gideon presses when Camilla finds herself with a startling absence of words.

Camilla’s throat has gone inconveniently dry. She swallows hard and masks the gesture with a smile she’s surprised to find she doesn’t have to fake. “Leg day tomorrow, yeah?” It’s not exactly an apology. But it’s an invitation, and that’s frankly more than she’d expected to ever offer Gideon Nav.

Gideon cocks her head like a perplexed dog and stares. Camilla can see her eyes flicking about behind her darkened lenses as she attempts to read Camilla’s expression. It takes a few seconds, but finally Gideon mirrors Camilla’s smile. She shakes her head with a scoff and pulls her arm away only to give Camilla a playful shove that nearly takes her off her feet. “You and your fucking leg days, I swear.”

Camilla shoves back and Gideon sways obligingly, putting up no resistance. “Complain all you like, but you can’t argue with results.”

“Oh, yeah?” Gideon’s smile glides into an absolutely filthy smirk. One eyebrow rises with a practiced arch. “You been checkin’ out my quads, Hect? Maybe my glutes?”

Camilla rolls her eyes and turns away to return to her quarters, unwilling to dignify Gideon’s insinuation with a response. “Tomorrow, Nav,” she calls over her shoulder, waving. “Prepare to feel the burn.”

“I can’t wait,” Gideon calls back.

Camilla’s surprised to find that she agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points to my beta/partner Velmax for coining Downward Facing Dumbass in addition to most of the "proper" pose names. Also for the Locked Tomb joke. 
> 
> Velmax also noted that the way I write Cam's voice is similar to Janine Kishi's voice in the netflix Babysitter's Club reboot, and honestly that's a pretty legit take.


	3. Working In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Camilla likes routines. Harrowhark is not a fan of Camilla's current routine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's more Gideon in the next chapter, I swear.

Camilla’s grown used to running into Gideon. They don’t generally make plans, but over time their once-impromptu workout sessions have somehow become deliberate. Regular, even. Camilla hasn’t written it down, but there’s a definite schedule. Which makes perfect sense, really: if Gideon had her way, then every day would be arm day. Better to follow a set pattern to ensure that they’re rotating muscle groups.

Camilla will never be used to running into Harrowhark Nonagesimus. 

She is, by now, so accustomed to Gideon’s facepaint that she’s forgotten it’s supposed to be ominous. Seeing the skullfaced necromancer of the Ninth up close and personal reminds her viscerally. The fragments of what Camilla is quite sure are actual human bone that she ornaments herself with accentuate the effect.

“Gideon the Ninth is my cavalier,” the Lady Nonagesimus informs her needlessly and without preamble.

Camilla eyes her with carefully measured detachment. She is not intimidated by this creature, and she is certainly not afraid of her. “I am aware of that.”

“She is _not_ the cavalier of the Sixth.”

Camilla just barely manages to suppress a laugh. “Being the cavalier of the Sixth myself, I am even more acutely aware of that.”

Harrow tilts her head. Her eyes are impossibly dark beneath her veil, twin voids boring into Camilla. “Are you? Because it seems that you’ve forgotten, somehow.” She crosses her arms over her chest. It has a very different effect when she does it than when Gideon does. When Gideon does it, her muscles bulge dramatically, all strong, smooth curves beneath her skin. When Harrow does it, she somehow just becomes even pointier. “Where _is_ your necromancer?”

Camilla eyes her blankly. It’s none of Harrowhark’s business where her necromancer is, and anyone who doesn’t know he spends every waking moment trying to cure the Lady Septimus of her chronic illness is clearly not paying attention. And the Lady Nonagesimus is many things - most of them quite unpleasant - but unobservant is not one of them. “Where is your point?”

Harrow spits like a feral cat. “She’s _mine_.”

The words land low in Camilla’s stomach and sit sour in her gut, a suckerpunch far surpassing any that Nonagesimus could ever land with her fists. “She’s your cavalier,” Camilla concedes, her voice so even you could rest a cup on it without spilling a drop. “Not your property. Nor mine.”

Harrow’s lips purse so firmly they practically vanish. Camilla’s grown expert at reading expressions through a mask of paint, so she catches the flicker of vulnerability in Harrowhark’s dark eyes. “I _know_ that,” the necromancer of the Ninth says, not quite managing to not sound petulant about it. “I only meant…” She hardens her expression, tucking her stray vulnerability under her armor like a loose thread. “She is distracted from her duties. She is here to serve as my sword.”

“And I’m quite confident that when you need a sword she will be only too happy to oblige you. In the meantime, there seems no harm in permitting her to spend her time as she sees fit.”

“That there seems no harm to _you_ is hardly surprising.” The corner of her mouth quirks up into what might be a sinister smile on any other face but on hers is simply sinister. “How _is_ Dulcinea Septimus, anyway? Or does Sextus not consult with you even on that?” Before Camilla can summon a response that won’t result in an inter-Housal incident, Harrowhark continues, “ _My_ cavalier has obligations to fulfill. Vital, sacred obligations from which she should not be distracted. She is _not_ here to run around like a fool.”

“Well, she’s certainly not about to start running around like a genius.”

“And she is not here to make... _friends_.” The way Harrowhark Nonagesimus says “friends” makes Camilla suspect she’s never had any. The amount of ice suspended from the word could freeze a volcano. 

“I’m not trying to steal your cav, if that’s your concern. Look, if you want Gideon to pay more attention to you, maybe you should actually give her something to do.”

“Th-this isn’t about _attention_ ; it’s--”

Camilla’s lost all patience for whatever this nonsense is. The fraught relationship between Gideon and her necro is well outside the scope of her concerns, and she has a schedule to maintain. “It’s a matter that doesn’t concern me,” Camilla interrupts. Harrowhark’s only response is to splutter with inarticulate indignation, so Camilla cuts her off again, exhausted even though it’s still early. “Maybe just talk to your cavalier instead of harassing me, huh?”

Harrowhark rolls her eyes at this. “Please. I could shout at her for hours and still not penetrate that thick skull of hers.”

“Then perhaps you should talk to her instead of shouting at her.”

Harrow goes completely rigid, and for a moment Camilla thinks it’s because she’s struck a chord with her. Then she hears the unmistakable galloping footfall of Gideon the Ninth echoing down the hall toward them.

“Heyyyyy, Cam, I--” Gideon stops dead in her tracks, looking back and forth between Camilla and Harrowhark. “Fuck, am I hallucinating?” She steps closer, lowering her aviators to peer curiously at Harrow and holy _fuck_ , how has Camilla never noticed her eyes before?? They’re _golden_ \- bright as amber; a ray of sunlight breaking through clouds; fresh-brewed tea; sunrise on gentle waves. If Camilla gasps at the sight, the others have the good sense not to mention it. “Shouldn’t you be huddled up in a bone cocoon down in the facility or something? Unlocking the secrets of Lyctorhood? Cooking up necromantic theorems the likes of which would make the Emperor Undying cream his celestial jeans?”

Harrow’s face puckers. “You’re _disgusting_.”

“I am.” Gideon tugs at the front of her shirt demonstratively, releasing a wave of stale musk. “Sorry ‘bout it. I ran here, and these are yesterday’s robes.”

Camilla wrinkles her nose in distaste. The bone servitors’ laundering may not fully meet her own rigorous standards, but they’re adequate and couldn’t be any simpler to use. There’s absolutely no reason to stew in one’s own filth one second longer than necessary.

“I figured you wouldn’t mind,” Gideon explains when she catches Cam’s expression. “We’re gonna be sweating anyway. What’s a little extra sweat?”

Camilla’s about to tell her exactly the ways in which that is a horribly unsanitary mindset when Harrowhark steps in.

“You will _not_ be sweating with the Sixth today.”

Gideon turns to her necromancer, looking baffled. “I won’t?”

“No. I… need you.”

Gideon’s eyes open wide behind her glasses. “You _what_ now?” She turns to Camilla and waggles her eyebrows with a cartoonish level of suggestion. “She _needs_ me, does she?” 

“Don’t be childish,” Harrow admonishes her, averting her scowling face.

“Sure you don’t wanna hang with me and Cam?” Gideon jabs an irreverent finger into the billowing fabric that conceals Harrow’s shoulders. “Your arms are like overcooked snowleeks. I’m surprised you can even lift a bone. Some exercise would be good for you.” She grins. “Or it’d kill you. Which would be good for me! It’s a win-win.”

A tic pulses in Harrow’s jaw and she turns on her heel. “Your necromancer requires your assistance. You are sworn to help me attain Lyctorhood. Therefore, you shall come and assist me.” She strides toward the door without waiting for her cavalier.

Gideon hesitates, then shrugs at Camilla. “See you tomorrow, then, I guess. Do some extra reps for your fallen comrade, huh?” She follows Harrow down the hall, but not without turning around to pull an obscene face at Camilla.

All in all, the exchange didn’t even last long enough to truly put Camilla’s schedule off. Gideon always squanders the first ten minutes of their workouts running her mouth about every inanity she can think of - Coronabeth’s latest daring fashion choice, who she suspects of sleeping with whom, the fucking _weather_ of all things - rather than actually working out, so if anything Camilla’s actually ahead of schedule. And she’s always preferred solitary exercise, anyway. In her own backhanded way, the Lady Nonagesimus has done her a favor. 

Camilla gets through nearly half of her warm-up stretches before the solitude starts to bother her. She’s twelve reps deep into her second set of pull-ups before she admits it to herself. 

She should be enjoying this. The silence allows her to appreciate the beautiful stillness of the morning, the way that sunlight streams in through the windows and catches the motes of dust in the air, the simple pleasure of moving her body. When was the last time she was able to exercise in peace and quiet?

But, well. It’s arm day. Arm day is Gideon’s favorite. 

If she were here, Gideon would be doing one-armed pull-ups and making it look easy as breathing. She’d be crowding out the silence with her brash voice, her surprisingly rich laughter, her constant noise and movement and her overwhelming presence. She’d be showing off her strength, flexing her muscles, offering high fives and fist bumps, making filthy insinuations and horrible jokes, stinking of sweat and face paint and sword polish and _Gideon_. 

Camilla’s grip weakens, her palms suddenly too slippery to hold on. She lets go of the rail and drops neatly to her feet. She’s barely begun, but she already feels worn out. 

Routines are good: they’re dependable, orderly, certain. She hates to break one once she’s established it. But somehow, she just doesn’t feel like working out today. Somehow, continuing to exercise feels more like a departure from her routine than an adherence to it. 

It’s not that she misses Gideon’s presence, she tells herself sensibly as she wipes her palms against her pants and begins to make her way back down the hall toward her own quarters. And it’s certainly not that she doesn’t want Gideon to miss out on her favorite workout day. 

Camilla just needs a day off. That’s all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ninth may do bones, but they don't do feelings. Neither does the Sixth.
> 
> Thank you as always to my partner and beta, Velmax, and to you for reading and commenting.


	4. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gideon may be the one who suffers through the siphoning trial, but Camilla's the one who needs time to recover.

There’s a knock on the door of the Sixth’s quarters, which is highly unusual. Palamedes hasn’t come home for more than a quick change of robes and a stint in the sonic in several days, but that’s no reason for him to act like he doesn’t live there. But nobody else ever comes to the Sixth. The thought flickers through her mind that maybe Gideon is finished assisting Harrowhark and has come to catch up on arm day. If so, that’s awfully presumptuous of her and certainly a break in their usual protocol. 

“Who is it?” she barks through the door, resting twitchy fingers over one of their innumerable locks for comfort.

“...Harrowhark Nonagesimus,” answers a surprisingly frail voice on the other side.

Camilla unlocks the door and cracks it open with her hand on the hilt of her rapier and an air of indignation. She drops the air of indignation and tightens her grip on her rapier when she sees the state of the Lady Nonagesimus. The look on her face sends Camilla’s nerves into a spiral. The Ninth necromancer is wringing her gloved hands and looking pale and worried, her face paint hastily applied and her hair looking and smelling like it’s been lightly fried. It’s strange to see her in just a shirt and trousers: no hooded robe to shadow her face, no veil to cover her eyes. Stranger still to see her discomposed. Her ears look small and naked without her myriad bone earrings.

Gideon is nowhere in sight.

“Sixth,” Harrowhark says in a tone of voice that Camilla’s never heard from her before. “ _Camilla_. I…” She closes her strange, black eyes and takes a moment to compose herself. “The House of the Ninth has need of your specialized knowledge.”

Camilla cocks her head and waits, an uneasy feeling tugging at her gut.

“There has been an… _incident_. With my cavalier.”

Harrowhark says more, but it’s a blur. Camilla catches only snips of phrases as she swiftly gathers her medical supplies, her body acting on autopilot as her mind raises a horrifying racket that nearly drowns Nonagesimus’s words out altogether. “...facility… ... _trick_ to it; it took _days_ , and it… ...knew better, but of course… ...stubborn as a mule… ...should have left it to the Eighth…”

The Emperor-forsaken _siphoning trial_. Fuck. Palamedes had figured that one out ages ago, and he’d dismissed it out of hand the instant he'd determined what it would require. It would’ve put Camilla in a coma, he’d decided, if she were lucky. With a strong possibility of permanent severe brain damage. Or very probably death for them both if either of them faltered for even a fraction of a second. Harrowhark is alive, so Gideon must have survived, if only technically. Harrowhark Nonagesimus put her cavalier through that… that… _impossible_ ordeal, that unsurvivable trial. Put _Gideon_ through that special brand of hell. 

Gideon is alive. She _must_ be. Camilla can’t let herself believe anything else. So her mind repeats it like a mantra: Gideon is alive. Gideon is alive. Gideon is alive.

She clicks the locks into place behind her, and Gideon is alive.

She follows Harrow blindly through halls, down stairways, and Gideon is alive.

She waits impatiently as Harrowhark disables the bone wards on the door to the Ninth’s quarters, and Gideon is alive.

She follows Harrowhark through a large room with a large, rumpled necromancer’s bed and a cavalier bed at its foot that looks like it’s never been touched, and Gideon is alive.

They pass into another room, lined with windows, and Gideon is, indeed, alive. Camilla can see the rise and fall of her powerfully muscled chest as she lies sprawled out on a sea of black sheets puddled on the floor. Her facepaint is a blur of pink and gray and brown, nearly washed off by blood, sweat, and tears. Mostly blood.

“...Is she going to make it?” Harrow asks nervously. She’s hovering just past Camilla’s shoulder, wringing her hands fretfully. Her voice is devoid of its usual calculated, cold superiority, instead sounding weak and frightened. It nearly stirs Camilla’s sympathy, but she’s too busy being worried about Gideon and absolutely fucking furious with Harrowhark.

“She’s alive,” Camilla says, keeping her voice as free of inflection as is possible. “Which is more than I would have expected if you completed the siphoning trial.” She wants to grab Harrowhark by the shoulders and shake her. She wants to demand what she was thinking, taking such a tremendous risk. But more than that, she wants to make sure that Gideon’s mind and body will recover from this ordeal.

She sends Harrow off to the doorway, and Harrow goes more compliantly than expected. Camilla checks Gideon’s vitals. She’s checks them again, because there’s no fucking way that they’re accurate. Then she checks them once more.

She knows her instruments are in good working order. She knows that she’s reading them correctly. And yet, they’re telling her that Gideon is fine when she should be damaged beyond all repair.

“How is she?” Harrow speaks up, evidently more afraid of her cavalier’s condition than she is of Camilla’s barely contained rage.

“I won’t know how her brain is until she comes around, but her body is holding up shockingly well.”

Harrow makes a sound that’s somehow both relieved and exasperated. “That does sound like Griddle.”

Camilla pauses at the peculiar pet name then shakes it off. Maybe it’s a Ninth thing. “Frankly, if I believed in miracles I would call her miraculous. Her condition, I mean. It’s nothing short of astonishing.”

Harrow’s face slips into troubled contemplation. “She is… quite resilient.” She offers nothing more.

“Well, as far as I can tell, she’s going to pull through. She’ll be dehydrated and very likely hungry, though she should be cautious when she comes to and not just shovel food down her gullet.”

Camilla notices Harrow fidgeting pensively in one of her pockets, the sound of metal on metal. She’s got Gideon’s key ring, then. It’s probably burning a hole in her pocket, anxious to examine her new room. “Why don’t you procure her some food from the dining hall? I’d like to run some more tests, and you don’t need to be here for that.”

Harrow’s jaw tenses and she stares at Camilla watchfully.

“She won’t die on my watch,” Cam assures her.

Harrow shakes her head like she’s shooing away a fly. “Of course she won’t. I don’t know why I worried. If I dropped the whole of Canaan House on her head, she’d walk it off.”

“Go on,” Camilla presses, “Get her some food. Eat some yourself while you're at it; necromancers never take proper care of themselves.”

Harrow looks conflicted for a long minute, then nods and goes.

Several minutes later, Gideon wakes with a groan. “ _Fuuuuuuuuuuggghhhcckkk_ …” She rubs at her face with both hands. “Fuckin’... Feels like Crux took a shit in my head.”

Camilla can’t help a surprised, relieved laugh, which clearly startles Gideon.

“Shit! I, uh, I didn’t-- Hey, Cam.” 

Gideon’s voice is rough and gritty, but it’s forming coherent words and that alone makes Cam’s heart feel like celebrating. “I have no idea who or what ‘Crux’ is, but considering that you should by all rights be _dead_ , I’d say a headache is probably the best outcome one could hope for.”

Gideon’s golden eyes narrow in confusion. “Why should I be dead? Did Harrow poison me?”

“Technically, no. She’s gone to get you food, though, so I wouldn’t rule it out. Nav… Did you _really_ complete the siphoning trial?”

“Shit, I guess that wasn’t a dream, huh?” Her eyes widen suddenly and she swats at the crotch and seat of her pants. She lets out a sigh of relief and closes her eyes. “Well, thank fuck for that.”

“For what?”

“That I didn’t-- Um, never mind. What’re you doing here, anyway?”

“Making sure that you’re okay. Which you shouldn’t be. Warden determined that that trial was far too dangerous for anyone not already bred to be a human battery.”

“It definitely did suck,” Gideon agrees.

“Essentially, yes. It sucked your life force out of your body to feed your necromancer, and it did so for an exceptionally long time. By all rights, you should be completely and permanently catatonic.”

“Lucky me,” Gideon replies, rubbing bruised palms over her face so that dead blood and dried face paint flake off like grim snow. “I feel pretty alright, except for this fucking headache. Don’t think I should work out today, though.”

“No,” Camilla agrees, “you absolutely shouldn’t. Your body will need days to recover, possibly longer.”

“Oh, good. For a minute I thought you were here because I was missing leg day or some shit.”

Camilla rolls her eyes. She rises and fetches water from the bathroom then pushes the glass into Gideon’s hands. “Drink slowly,” she tells her as she accepts it. “Don’t gulp it like an animal.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Gideon replies with a blood-tinged smirk, but she obeys. 

An awkward but not uncomfortable quiet settles between them. It lasts for nearly a minute before Gideon speaks up again. “So, uh, I guess my eyes didn’t melt from their sockets.”

Camilla’s brow furrows. “From the siphoning trial? It looks like your eyes bled a bit, but no, they didn't melt.”

Gideon shudders performatively. “Not from the siphoning; from glimpsing my necromancer’s naked fl---” She cuts off abruptly when the necromancer in question returns to the room far sooner than either of them had expected, her pockets bulging with hunks of bread and a bowl of soup in her hands. Either she hasn’t examined her new Lyctoral room yet or she has done so with exceptional speed. Camilla suspects the latter, but today has been full of surprises.

She’s dismissed soon after, and with Gideon alive and functional and Harrowhark watchfully fluttering about her like some paranoid black butterfly, Camilla willingly takes her leave.

* * *

Nav’s recovery really is nothing short of miraculous. The next morning, as Camilla begins warming up for solitary exercises with her Positional Meditation routine, she’s startled by a jovial voice saying, “Oh, sweet, I’m just in time for The Emperor’s Farts!”

Camilla wobbles in surprise and doesn’t even correct her. “Gideon!”

“‘Sup, Cam?” Gideon saunters over, the perfect picture of health. Her skin’s got all its robust color back, she’s walking without the slightest need of assistance, and her makeup is immaculate and horrifying. 

“I thought I told you to take a few days off to recover.”

Gideon shrugs. “I got bored.” She drops into a nearly perfect Emperor’s Thumb pose. 

“I was going to check you out later,” Camilla finds herself saying for some inexplicable reason. “Make sure you’re still holding up okay and haven’t slipped into a sudden coma.”

Gideon grins. “Not necessary. You can check me out now, if you want.” She lifts her arms and flexes her biceps.

Camilla rolls her eyes, though not before pausing to appreciate the admittedly impressive show. “Okay,” she says, “How many fingers am I holding up?” She extends her middle finger in Gideon’s direction, and Gideon laughs.

“About this many,” Gideon replies, returning the favor. 

“Well, it seems your brain is in as good of condition as it ever is.” Camilla shifts into the Child of Dominicus pose and Gideon follows suit automatically. 

“Thanks. You sound like my necro.”

“I’m surprised she let you out of her sight.”

“Enh, she had some boring necromancer stuff to have a lady-boner over. I’d just get in her way. And be bored. Like, even _more_ bored.” Gideon’s mouth twitches into a surprisingly pensive frown. “Honestly, she’s been all weird since I woke up yesterday. I needed to get away before it got… weirder.” Camilla doesn’t ask her to elaborate. Gideon does anyway. “She’s been, like… talking to me? Which is bad enough on its own, but she’s also been acting all protective and guilty and shit.”

“That sounds like a reasonable reaction from a necromancer who’s put their cavalier into mortal danger and seen them bleed from every orifice as a result.”

Gideon nods. “It doesn’t sound like _Harrow_ , though.”

Camilla inclines her head slightly, an acknowledgement and a dismissal. The strange dynamic between necro and cav of the Ninth House is none of her business. She eases out of her pose and shakes out her limbs, limbered up and ready to work. 

Gideon mimics her motions, doffing heavy black robes and shaking loose well-muscled limbs. She stretches out her fingers, pops her knuckles, cracks her neck. “Cardio day, right?” she asks.

“We can take it easy if you’re--”

Gideon scoffs dismissively and pushes off into her usual swift jog. Camilla purses her lips in concern but shakes it off - if Gideon wants to risk a relapse that’s her own prerogative - and hurries to catch up, matching her stride to Gideon’s. 

They jog in companionable silence, and it’s nice. It’s Camilla’s routine falling back into place. Jogging through familiar halls with sunlight splashing golden on the floor, Gideon limned in Dominicus’s radiance at her side, squinting beneath her shades and hardly breathing any harder than she would be if they were taking a casual stroll.

And then Gideon goes and ruins it all. “So,” she says as they round a corner shoulder to shoulder, “let’s say I had this friend…”

Camilla’s stomach fills with ice water but she says nothing, not missing a single footstep.

“And this friend had a problem. Like, a girl problem, sort of? I guess? Like, say this friend’s known this girl for a long time, and they’ve always hated each other’s guts. I mean, really _loathed_ each other. But now maybe it’s starting to feel like… Why? Just, why?”

“Problems of this nature are not in my area of expertise,” Camilla deflects.

Naturally, Gideon ignores her. “I mean, there’s a hundred million reasons _why_ , of course. But sometimes it feels like… maybe there _aren’t_? Maybe they could, I don’t know, be friends? Or… something?”

Camilla’s heart sends an awful throb through her chest. She lifts her fingers to her carotid and runs faster, as if cardiac distress were something that could be outrun. Gideon keeps pace seemingly without effort or even noticing.

“What do you think, Cam? If two people have been at each other’s throats their whole lives - I mean really ripping each other to shreds, mortal enemy type shit - is there any way for them to actually, like, drop the bullshit and treat each other like reasonable human beings?”

“I have no experience in this area. My friendships have always been mutual.” Camilla picks up her pace and runs until she can’t hear Gideon’s voice over her own heartbeat and their mingled footsteps. She runs until she can’t anymore, then she slows to an agonized halt, sinking into an exhausted crouch and struggling to catch her breath. Gideon drops down beside her like a sack of bricks, breathing heavily and sweating her paint off and looking radiantly, miraculously alive. Camilla closes her eyes and measures her pulse again. This isn’t healthy.

“I mean. She’s still a horror,” Gideon continues between ragged breaths as though she’d never left off. “Don’t get me wrong. She’s still a nasty little hobgoblin who does fucked up shit with bones for funzies. But it really feels like she’s changing, you know? She _tells_ me things now. She _trusts_ me. We’re starting to actually feel like a necro and cav are supposed to. I think. Or… friends? Maybe?” She scoffs. “It’s fucking weird, feeling like Harrowhark Nonagesimus of all people gives a shit about whether I live or die. Apart from wanting to be party to my demise, that is. Hell, she’s acting downright _protective_ of me.” She turns to Cam with such tender hope in her amber eyes that Cam has to turn away.

Camilla lets Gideon’s expectant silence stretch until it snaps. “You’ll never be equals.”

Gideon makes a frustrated sound in the back of her throat and scowls. She should know better than to try to talk about personal things with Camilla; that’s just not the kind of dynamic that they have. They work out together. They talk about which exercises are best for Gideon’s triceps, the merits of active stretching pre-workout, which cavalier Gideon suspects of bedding down with which necromancer this week, the best places to do isometric exercises in Canaan House, which sword polishes work and which are rubbish. They do _not_ talk about feelings. “I _know_ that,” Gideon says petulantly. “She’s the fucking Reverend Daughter, for fuck’s sake.”

“If you wanted lies, you should’ve asked the Third.”

“I don’t want lies; I just want the truth not to _suck_.”

Camilla rises to her feet somewhat shakily, ignoring the pain still gnawing away at her ribcage. It’s probably a pulled muscle. She’s lived through worse. “Welcome to real life, Gideon. Sometimes, the truth just sucks.”

They go through the motions of their cooldown routine in a weirdly ruminative silence. Gideon doesn’t even come up with obscene names for the poses, or if she does she keeps it to herself.

Camilla’s chest continues to ache long after they part ways. When she wakes the next morning, the soreness has faded from the rest of her muscles but her heart still hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Gideon canonically didn't soil herself during the siphoning trial, so I've allowed her that dignity here... but she 100% would've soiled herself during the siphoning trial.


	5. Riposte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was only a matter of time before they got their swords out.

It was only a matter of time before weapons became involved. The only thing that’s actually surprising about it is that it took so long.

“You don’t spar with the other cavs.” Gideon mentions it casually as she lowers her hood and wipes down the back of her muscled neck with a black cloth.

“I don’t,” Camilla agrees, already knowing where this conversation is going. She knows through the inescapable grapevine that is Canaan House that Gideon has become a regular fixture at the biweekly cavalier sparring sessions arranged ostensibly for the practice of the cavs but in actual fact for the amusement of Coronabeth Tridentarius. 

“Tern fights like a textbook. But, like, a really snooty textbook that uses too much hair product.”

Camilla snorts despite herself. “I’m not surprised.”

“Magnus fights like a textbook, too, but one that’s lost half its pages. Jeannemary fights like a very well-trained hellspawn. Dyas fights like, well, a soldier. Precise, but _violent_. Protesilaus fights like a sack of meat, but, like, a _graceful_ one. It’s disturbing, really. Asht I don’t see in action much, but he’s surprisingly graceful, too. You wouldn’t think those beefy dudes would be so limber.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“ _You_ fight like a brawler.”

Camilla pauses mid-squat and considers Gideon Nav. If the Ninth cav weren’t so spectacularly dim, Camilla would suspect her of having nefarious motives. Apart from solitary drills behind the closed and thoroughly locked doors of her quarters, she hasn’t bared her blade since that one reckless encounter with Gideon outside the Facility. Even that had been an almost unacceptable risk - they’re supposed to be playing their cards close to the chest, not tipping their hand for all to see - but the sudden appearance of a large, hooded, black-cloaked figure intruding on a private conversation had seemed the greater risk in the moment. And, Emperor Undying, what a fight it had been. “So do you,” she notes with a measure of caution.

Gideon nods agreeably. “I _liked_ fighting you.”

Camilla arches an eyebrow at that. 

“No, really! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was shitting myself--”

Camilla wrinkles her nose in disgust.

“--not _literally_ ,” Gideon says with a roll of her eyes that Camilla can just make out through her ridiculous aviators (where did she get those things, anyway? They can hardly be standard issue on the Ninth). “But still, it was the best fight I’ve had since I got here.”

“I suppose I could say the same,” Camilla concedes, “if only because that was the only fight I’ve had since we got here.” Truly, it had been spectacular. Any respect that Camilla has grudgingly given to Gideon is due in no small part to the sheer bloody-mindedness of her combat in that meeting. She’d been ruthless and _fast_. And so incredibly _strong_. Armed with only her rapier, Camilla had been concerned the Ninth cav would snap it like a twig in her hands.

“Well.” Gideon cracks her knuckles with a pop that makes Camilla wince and would probably make the Reverend Daughter salivate. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“If I wanted to spar with the rest of the cavs, I would join your little meetings. I’m not interested in being part of that… _spectacle_.”

“Yeah, I get that. But what about just sparring with me?”

There are a dozen very logical reasons to say no. But… Well, she’s already sparred with Gideon, so as long as they stick to rapiers she’s unlikely to tip her hand any more than she already has. Plus, sparring practice is better with a partner, and Gideon may be an insufferable jackass but she is a damned good swordswoman. She’s already substantially improved Camilla’s general fitness. There’s probably no better candidate at Canaan House for Camilla to test her steel against.

“Very well,” Camilla says before she can talk herself back out of it. Judging by the look of surprise on Gideon’s face, she was expecting more of a battle. But once the surprise passes from her expression, it’s overtaken by a toothy grin.

Canaan House is massive. It isn’t difficult to find a place suitable for sparring practice. The room they decide upon isn’t as well appointed as the official training room, but it’s much farther from prying eyes and it’s got plenty of space for them to wreak full-on havoc.

Sparring with Gideon is… _fun_. Camilla can nearly forget herself when she and Gideon get lost with the clashing of blades. It’s not at all like formal cavalier dueling, even though they’re both using their rapiers. Gideon’s not all caught up in rules and protocols and proper sword etiquette. She’s pure combat.

She’s sweat and muscle and movement and breath. Her attacks aren’t always pretty, but they’re damned effective. And she learns. Every time Camilla does something particularly spectacular, she can feel Gideon eagerly dissecting the move in her brain, taking it apart and putting it back together again, figuring things out, feeding the new information into her muscle memory. Maybe she’s more clever than Camilla gave her credit for, at least when it comes to her body.

That the rapier and knuckle knives are not Gideon’s primary weapons is obvious. Camilla’s suspected it strongly from the time of their first bout, and fighting with her again confirms it. It isn’t that she’s bad with them - she’s frankly brilliant with them - but there’s a feeling of restraint behind her swordcraft that’s all too familiar to Cam. Her arms want a heavier weapon. Her legs want a different stance. Her reactions are quick as lightning, but Cam can tell that they aren’t her _first_ reactions. There’s a gut reaction that comes first, quick as a heartbeat, and gets pushed aside to make way for her rapier reaction. Camilla wonders if that’s why she’s able to best Gideon so often.

She wonders how Gideon _really_ fights. When she’s not saddled with a glorified toothpick, a fistful of glass shards, and a bunch of impractical rules and poses. 

She wonders how Gideon would fare against her twin blades.

For two weeks she wonders. During workouts, stealing glimpses at the callouses on Gideon’s hands and trying to parse what sort of weapon shaped them. During sparring matches whenever Gideon’s reaction is just a hair too slow, whenever her stance is off, whenever Camilla catches herself missing her own preferred weapons.

Camilla’s got the point of her rapier touched to Gideon’s sternum and her boot on Gideon’s solar plexus when she finally asks. “So, what do you _really_ use?”

The grin runs off of Gideon’s face like so much sweat. “I don’t know what you mean,” she lies after hesitating seven seconds too long.

Camilla sheathes her blade and reaches down a hand to help Gideon up from the floor, though Gideon could just as easily pull her down. “Come on, Ninth. You know.”

“I don’t,” Gideon asserts, but she’s dodging Camilla’s eyes as she clambers to her feet, and Camilla catches a hint of red blooming on the edges of her ears. She’s so much easier to read when she’s not wearing her hooded robes.

Camilla doesn’t let go of Gideon’s hand even after Gideon’s on her feet. Gideon tries to let go, but when she realizes that Camilla isn’t going to she just stares back at her awkwardly. Camilla decides to try a different tactic: speak Gideon’s language. “If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

Gideon’s ears are definitely _red_. They’re nearly as bright as her hair. “I’ve gotta go,” she says, the way she always does when Camilla presses too close to a secret. “It’s been fun, though.”

Neither of them talks about it during their workout the next day, or the day after that. The next time they meet for a sparring session, Camilla is disappointed but unsurprised to see Gideon has stubbornly stuck with her rapier. Ah, well. Gideon is nothing if not stubborn.

The look on Gideon’s face when Camilla draws her twin blades is exquisite. Camilla takes a moment to savor it, favoring Gideon with a rare grin before lunging into action.

She’s got Gideon’s back against the wall in a matter of seconds, Gideon’s sword arm pinned to her own broad chest 'til the point of her rapier scrapes at the black paint under her chin, the dance already over before it’s even begun. Gideon’s out of breath, even though it can hardly even be called a fight. It’s simply a victory handed to Camilla on a silver platter.

“Holy fuck,” Gideon croaks, her eyes wide behind her glasses. 

Camilla harumphs and pulls back, leaving Gideon slumped breathlessly against the wall. “I’ve shown you mine, Nav. Where’s yours?”

It takes Gideon a few seconds to realize that her arm is no longer pinned and she’s at liberty to lower her rapier. She steps away from the wall with a nervous chuckle. “Dude… That was so _hot_.”

Camilla does her best to maintain a neutral expression. “Don’t be crass.”

“Okay, but seriously, though??” Gideon does her best to replicate Camilla’s moves and comes impressively close considering that A) she’s wielding a rapier and knuckle knives instead of two short swords and B) Camilla’s movements should’ve been too fast for her to process. “Dude. _Dude_! Two swords?!”

“I’m guessing that’s not your wield, then,” Camilla says, already knowing very well that it isn’t. What Gideon’s missing is some form of two-hander, something weighty. A broadsword, maybe, or a longsword. Possibly an axe or even a scythe; that would certainly be more in character for the Ninth House.

A playful smirk teases at the corner of Gideon’s painted mouth. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She laughs again, astonished and delighted. “Emperor Undying, I’ve never seen shit like that in real life before. It’s in, uh…” She thinks for a moment, then snaps her fingers. “ _Cohort Capers_. There’s this whole six issue arc featuring this total badass who shows up out of nowhere with two short swords. Super mysterious, a real renegade, plays by her own rules, blah blah blah. Pretty sure they gave her a spinoff.”

Of fucking course Gideon Nav reads comics. And shameless propaganda ones, at that. “ _Cohort Capers_ , huh?”

Gideon shoulders her rapier and gives Camilla a look she’s not certain how to parse. “Oh, I’ve seen it a couple other places, too. _Homoerotic Heroics of the Cohort_. Stuff like that.”

Camilla barks out a laugh. “I’m surprised you haven’t taken up working out with Marta Dyas.”

“You know, with all the comics and porn I’ve read about the Cohort, I wasn’t expecting them to have such a stick up their butts. A strap-on, maybe, but not a stick.” She leans into her starting position. “Ready to go again? I’m prepared for it, now.”

It takes a few seconds longer to defeat Gideon this time. 

* * *

The next time Camilla and Gideon meet to spar, Gideon’s already waiting. She appears unarmed at first, but when Camilla appears - twin blades ready in her hands - Gideon reaches behind a loose tapestry and withdraws an impressive longsword. Even at a glance, Camilla can tell this sword has been well loved: it’s exquisitely polished and cleaned, no doubt better maintained than anything in Gideon’s possession with the possible exception of her biceps.

Camilla grins broadly. She hasn’t fought against a longsword in at least a year, so this should be a treat. Last time she fought a longswordsman she had her opponent disarmed within seconds. It might take a little longer now, but she’s confident she’s got this in hand. She can take her.

It doesn’t take Camilla long to realize that she’s woefully miscalculated. Gideon is incredible with a rapier and knuckle knives, but she is fucking _lethal_ with her longsword. Within the first move of the duel, Camilla is already on the back foot.

It turns out that Gideon’s arms are good for more than pull-ups: each blow against her blades resonates up the length of Cam’s arms and judders her jaw. Her teeth ache before they’re three moves in. 

Somehow, Gideon’s even faster with her longsword than with a rapier. Cam’s always found two-handers to be awkward and clumsy, but Gideon makes it look like a natural extension of her arms.

Any ground Camilla gains is swiftly surrendered once more. Her every strike is countered with bone-clattering force. Every time she blocks one of Gideon’s blows, she worries that the stern metal of her blades will buckle. Blood races through Camilla’s veins, her pulse thunder in her ears. All she can hear is her heartbeat and Gideon’s harsh breathing, the clash of metal against metal, and the scrape of their boots on the marble floor.

This is the most fun that Camilla’s had in _years_.

In the end Gideon catches her out, blocking one blade with her sword and kicking the other out of Camilla’s hand so that it slides across the room. One more step and Cam feels her back thud against the wall. Her arm is pressed back behind her head, blade still stubbornly in her fist. She can’t move.

Gideon’s face is only an inch from her own, paint smeared with sweat and grinning wider than Camilla’s seen before. Her golden eyes are peering over the rim of her aviators, bright with molten joy that makes Camilla’s breath stutter. 

“You gonna drop that blade?” Gideon’s sword presses harder. Camilla can feel her shoulder straining. She’s going to be sore as hell tomorrow.

“Are you going to make me?”

Gideon’s smile becomes, somehow, even more brilliant. There’s a firm twist of Gideon’s sword and Camilla’s blade is pried expertly from her fingers. Camilla considers lunging for it as it drops but is glad that she chooses not to; Gideon’s faster with her longsword than she has any right to be, and Cam would’ve probably lost a finger when Gideon knocks the blade away in midair.

It’s not the first time that Gideon has bested her, but it is by far her most sound victory and she is aglow with it. Camilla can’t find it in herself to be embarrassed or at all abashed. There’s no shame in losing against a master swordswoman.

“Well met, Nav,” she says when she can speak again. As Gideon presses an ill-advised kiss to the flat of her sword, Camilla bends to collect her own blades. “I haven’t seen longsword skills like that in person before.”

Gideon cocks her head and raises an eyebrow.

Camilla gives a small, neutral shrug of her shoulders as she inspects her blade for any new nicks or scratches. “I believe there was an excellent longswordswoman in _Cohort Capers #12_.”

Gideon’s eyes go wide. 

Camilla sheathes her blades. “And, of course, there was some rather… innovative, if inadvisable, use of a longsword in _Seductive Swordslingers of the Second_.”

“Huh, I haven’t read that one-- _Wait_.” Gideon’s sword hangs limp at her side as she gawps. “... _You_ read _porn_??”

“It is difficult to accurately assess the quality of their actual swordsmanship from the photographs, however.”

Gideon flaps her hand impatiently. “No, no, wait, back up; that’s not what’s important here. Camilla Hect. _Do you have dirty magazines_? And, more importantly, do you have them _here_?”

Camilla nods, keeping her smile carefully restrained.

Gideon nearly stabs herself in her hurry to sheathe her sword. She rushes up to Cam and seizes her by the shoulders. “ _Dude_. Show me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, but I hope it was worth it! Feels good to get these lovely bros back in action. My thanks as always to my partner Velmax for beta'ing.
> 
> Happy 2021, and may this year be better than the last.


	6. Dynamic Stretching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Camilla needs an outlet for her frustrations. Gideon has a suggestion.

“I think we’re good here, Cam.”

Camilla stiffens like she’s been slapped. She’s been assisting her necromancer for less than an hour and a half. Before he requested her aid this morning, she hadn’t seen him in three days, and she’d only seen him three days ago because Dulcinea Septimus had happened to drag him to the dining hall before Cam had finished her breakfast. “Are you certain, Warden?”

Palamedes removes his glasses and wipes at the lenses, nodding wearily. “Dulcie has had a taxing morning. She should rest now.”

He’s not wrong: after enduring over an hour of exhaustive tests and treatments, the Lady Septimus looks twice as pale as she had when they began, the only color in her face the flecks of blood on her lips from her most recent bout of coughing. She’d slipped into sleep before Cam and Protesilaus had even finished laying her back down on her bed. Cam squares her shoulders and turns to her necromancer with determination. “With all due respect, I can still be useful to you even while she is resting.” She leans forward slightly, letting earnestness bleed into her voice. “Let me be useful.”

Palamedes makes an infuriatingly dismissive gesture with one thin hand. “No need; I won’t waste your time with trifles. Pro and I can handle the sterilization of the equipment on our own once he returns with lunch, and I am perfectly capable of transcribing my own notes.”

Camilla’s heart sinks and her resolve hardens. “Assisting my necromancer can hardly be considered a waste of my time,” she presses. “It is why I am here at Canaan House.”

Palamedes puffs a breath onto one of his lenses and wipes it with greater attention than he has paid to Camilla since their ship docked. “And you were very helpful today. Thank you for that. This battery of tests required an extra set of hands, and you performed admirably.”

A small but fierce knot of anger flares in her chest. “I am more than an _extra set of hands_ , Warden.”

He looks at her, then, without bothering to replace his glasses. His eyes are so much more piercing without them. Camilla’s been pierced by them enough times throughout their lives; she isn’t cowed by their intensity anymore. She pushes on.

“I am your _sword_. I am your _cavalier_. I am your own right hand, Palamedes.” She scoffs, disbelief besting her anger for a moment. “For fuck’s sakes, I’m your fucking second cousin! I’m literally your _blood_. I’ve been your best friend since long before I was sworn to be your cavalier.”

He arches an eyebrow. “You’re angry,” he says, and he has the audacity to sound surprised.

“I am _ill-used_.”

He replaces his glasses as if that will help him see her point more clearly. His brow furrows in what appears to be genuine befuddlement. “Camilla, how can you say that? I’ve granted you near-total freedom. You’re at liberty to roam Canaan House as you will, to pursue your own interests with impunity. How can you consider yourself ill-used? How many other cavaliers enjoy as much freedom as you do?”

Camilla laughs tiredly. “My point exactly, Warden.”

“I fail to see how--”

“Yeah, no, obviously.” Camilla stands with a rustle of somber gray robes and a rattle of her battered rapier. “If you find yourself needing your cavalier, you’ll find me wandering aimlessly about Canaah House, enjoying my freedom from utility.”

“Honestly, Cam, I don’t--”

Camilla shuts the door behind her when she leaves. If her necromancer insists on rendering her useless, she’ll be damned if she’ll be useless alone. She sets off to find the only other cavalier in this Emperor-forsaken place more ill-used by their necromancer.

It doesn’t take her long. For all the space in the First House, Gideon tends to stick to a predictable set of haunts. Camilla finds her in the room they usually use to warm up on a leg day, crouched in a nearly flawless Scholar’s Seat pose.

Gideon looks surprised to see Cam but not disappointed. She straightens out of the Scholar’s Seat and offers her knuckles to Camilla for a fistbump. “Hey! Thought you were helping Pal out with--”

“I was,” Camilla says curtly. “And now I’m not.”

“Oh… Well, cool; more Cam for me.” Her smile is radiant, but Camilla is in no mood to be irradiated. Gideon seems to realize this, as her smile falters and dims and her unbumped fist returns sheepishly to her side. “Everything okay?”

Coming to Gideon was a mistake. Camilla should have returned to her own quarters and done something petty and satisfying to blow off steam. Gone through Sextus’s sock drawer and carefully mismatched every pair. Re-hemmed all of his trousers to be two inches too short. Vented her messy feelings in solitude so that she could continue to present her meticulously tidy and restrained facade in public without anyone being the wiser.

Because she can’t lie to Gideon, she realizes. Not when Gideon is asking her so earnestly, not when she’s looking at her with more care in those incredible gold eyes than Cam would’ve credited her with. “I am a _waste_ of a cavalier,” she blurts out.

A disbelieving laugh bursts out of Gideon before she’s able to reign it in. “Are you fucking kidding me?! Cam, you’re the best damn cavalier in this place!”

“And I am _squandered_. Sextus has forgotten why we came here in the first place.” She shrugs helplessly. “Or maybe I’ve only been deluding myself. Maybe he never came here to become a Lyctor at all. Maybe he only ever came because _she_ did.”

“Who, Dulcie?”

Camilla groans. “Ugh, not you, too.”

“What? I’ve met her a few times. She’s nice. Hot, in an ‘I-might-die-at-any-second-but-at-least-I’ll-go-out-smiling-impishly’ kind of way.”

“Dulcinea Septimus is…” Camilla sighs, resigned. “A perfectly fine person, you’re right. It might be easier if she were awful. Then I could properly hate her.”  
Gideon tilts her head like a confused dog. “Why do you want to hate her? What, because your necro’s all doe-eyed over her? I thought you and he weren’t boning.”

“We’re _not_. And I wouldn’t mind him being ‘doe-eyed’ over her if it weren’t completely at the expense of all other things.”

“Ohhhh, right. You actually _like_ nerd stuff.”

“The quest to attain Lyctorhood is a bit more significant than ‘nerd stuff.’”

Gideon shrugs her indifference. “Whatever. For what it’s worth, I’ve done two trials with my necro and they’ve both _sucked_. I mean, like, major blood loss levels of suck. Harrowhark Nonagesimus digging around in my brain-meats with her little gremlin hands levels of suck; she swears she wasn’t reading my mind or doing anything dodgy while she was in there, but I swear to the Emperor Undying she at least changed the wallpaper. Seriously, working out with you is way more fun than creepy Lyctor bullshit.”

Camilla sags against the wall behind her, folding her arms across her chest. “I won’t say that spending time with you hasn’t been more enjoyable than I originally anticipated-” (Gideon cocks an eyebrow at this but says nothing) “-but I didn’t come to Canaan House for _fun_. I came here to serve as the cavalier primary of the Sixth House. I came here to assist the scion of the Sixth in achieving Lyctorhood, to help my lifelong companion become legend, to serve at the will of the man who became God and God who became man.”

Gideon shrugs. “I came here to be hot and meet chicks that aren’t Harrowhark Nonagesimus, but to each their own I guess.”

That Gideon has been more successful in achieving her goals than Cam has is possibly the greatest disappointment of the day. “It would probably help if you could talk to them.”

“I dunno, I think some of them are kinda into the strong but silent type.” She lowers her aviators to wink.

Somehow, this makes Cam even angrier. Palamedes is already ignoring her. If Gideon starts spending all of her time flexing for Coronabeth Tridentarius or - worse - at “ _Dulcie’s_ ” bedside, Camilla will be utterly friendless as well as without a mission.

Gideon’s hand lights on Camilla’s shoulder and it pulls her out of her rumination. “Dude. You’re gonna vibrate yourself to pieces if you don’t blow off some steam. You wanna go for a run or something? Burn off some of that rage before you bust a capillary?”

Camilla shakes her head. “Not really in the mood for a workout. Thank you, anyway.”

“Fair enough. How about sparring? Hitting things with swords always makes me feel better.”

It’s a tempting offer, but: “I can’t trust myself with a sword right now. Too pissed off. I might stab you.”

Gideon nods in understanding, as though her getting stabbed by a friend without provocation is a perfectly reasonable possibility she should have already taken into account. She removes her shades and taps them against her chin in thought. “You wanna make out?”

The surprise is enough to short circuit Camilla’s anger. “Do I _what_?” She turns to stare at Gideon, flabbergasted.

“Do you want to make out?” Gideon repeats, slowly and enunciating clearly. “I dunno, seems like a good way to burn off some energy without skewering me with your rapier.” Gideon’s expression is oddly calm, like she’s asking Cam if she wants to grab lunch. Her hand is still on Camilla’s shoulder, suddenly burning through every layer of fabric. Her hood is pushed back, showing rumpled and sweat-damp red hair that badly wants a trim. Her face is handsome under her paint: jaw strong and square, lips soft and full beneath bone-white painted-on teeth. Her eyes betray a measure of excitement, their bright amber shimmering the way Dominicus’s light reflects off the water right before sunset.

To say that the thought had never crossed Camilla’s mind before would be a lie, but she’s grown accustomed to lying to herself where Gideon is concerned. Lying to herself is a hell of a lot harder with Gideon’s hand hot and strong on her shoulder and with her offer hanging in the air between them.

Camilla licks her lips and swallows hard, focusing on slowing her heartbeat to a healthier rate. “I… don’t know that that would be advisable.”

Something fades in Gideon’s eyes and Camilla immediately mourns its passing. “Mm. Think you’d stab me?”

“Of course not; you asked for my consent. Just…” Camilla gestures to her own face. “I have no idea what the Ninth uses for facepaint, but I suspect it’s extremely unpleasant and probably unhealthy.”

Gideon’s astonishing eyes flick back and forth between Cam’s, reading her like a book - or, more likely, a dirty magazine. “It’s pretty nasty stuff, yeah.”

“Don’t get me wrong, you look-” (she swallows the word ‘hot’) “-very _striking_. But I really don’t want a mouthful of paint.” 

The grin that spreads across Gideon’s painted lips does not look like the expression of someone who’s just been rebuffed. “So what I’m hearing is that you wouldn’t mind a mouthful of _Gideon_.”

Camilla has supreme control over her body. Years of biofeedback training and rigorous self-discipline mean that she can slow her pulse when it races, steady her breath when it turns ragged, conduct the orchestra of her body’s voluntary and involuntary impulses like the most masterful conductor. Somehow, she’s still utterly unable to control the blush that rushes to her cheeks at Gideon’s insinuation.

“Ohhhhh, _shiiiiiiittttt_ , whaaaaaattt???” Gideon swivels to look Camilla in the eye. Camilla wills the blush to recede, but it’s too late. “Dude. Cam. _Cam_.” She sweeps her aviators in a circle around her face. “This shit comes _off_! Like, if that’s the only reason you don’t want to get all up in my business, I’ll wash it off right this fucking second. Wait, wait.” She lets go of Camilla’s shoulder and starts smearing her facepaint off with her sleeves, and Camilla can’t help but laugh.

Fuck, when was the last time she laughed? Really _laughed_?

But how can she not when Gideon Nav - grim cavalier primary of the Ninth House, the dread and somber bone nun, the black-robed Locked Tomb penitent haunting the halls of the First like a particularly well-muscled ghoul - is hurriedly wiping off her skull paint in a mess of black and white on the sleeves of her robe of office with the eagerness of a child unwrapping a present? 

“You _do_ want to make out, right?” Gideon asks suddenly, two-thirds of her skull wiped off and the rest smeared into abstraction. Her lips are still tinged grey, but they look a hell of a lot more kissable. “‘Cause Harrow’s gonna be 110% wrath if she catches me walking around without my paint, but if I get to make out with you I don’t give a fuck.”

Gideon looks ridiculous, her face all open delight and disgusting smears of paint that’s probably made from thousand-year-old bones and blood, her robe an absolute mess of greasy gray streaks that will never properly come out in the wash. Camilla grabs her by the front of her ruined robes and pulls her close. Gideon could resist her easily, but she goes along as pliant as anything. “Oh, what the hell,” Camilla says, and she kisses her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yayyyyyyyyy, this bromance is finally kicking off!

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, though, how is this ship not more of a thing?
> 
> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment and/or kudos; they keep the fanfic machine well-oiled.
> 
> Eternal thanks as always to my partner and beta, Velmax.


End file.
